Three 'white elephant' stadiums cost R6bn - twice what visiting fans spent - yet the benefits are tangible

Hosting the World Cup cost South Africa as much as R60-billion, which breaks down to a bill of R1250 for every citizen.

The returns on that investment will be complex and hard to measure. But analysts say a tangible profit can only be reaped if the event's leadership lessons are applied across the economy, and if the positive messages it sent about SA are sustained.

While the tournament gave SA a measure of protection from the global recession, it could not fend off the worst of the storm - or the loss of a million jobs over the past 20 quarters.

The World Cup added only between 0.2% and 0.3% to GDP, far less than the original prediction of 3%, said Udesh Pillay, director of the Human Sciences Research Council's centre for service delivery.

"The caveat is that, in a recession, that's not insignificant," said Pillay. "And, by contrast, the 2006 host nation Germany only balanced its budget a year ago. There was no net positive increase to Germany's GDP due to the tournament."

The Treasury has released an official figure for World Cup spending of R33-billion, but economists are putting the total cost at between R50-billion and R80-billion, having factored in host city contributions.

Most of the infrastructure spending was urgently required anyway, and will stimulate long-term growth.

"The tournament unlocked public funding that would have been locked up in bureaucracy," said Pillay. "It has created a project planning blueprint for the Eskom recapitalisation and the overhaul of Transnet. The World Cup also left a social legacy of national cohesion and harmony, and offered a statement of our capacity to achieve if political will and resources are combined."

That said, at least R6-billion of state money was spent on three "white elephant" stadiums that were not needed to host the tournament.

"If we were slightly more modest in our ambitions - we needn't have built five new stadiums, for example - a third of that spend could have been released for social investments," said Pillay.

The bill for the superfluous World Cup stadiums in Polokwane, Nelspruit and Durban was roughly twice the sum spent by all overseas visitors during the tournament.

Pillay said between 250000 and 300000 foreign fans came to the tournament, spending an average of R15000 apiece - pumping R3-billion to R4-billion into SA's economy.

The World Cup sparked a boom in retail sales, with June recording the fastest rise in sales for three years.

Economists asked by Bloomberg said sales had risen by 7.2% over the year, and by 1.8% in June alone.

A minimum of eight stadiums are required to host a World Cup. SA could have delivered the event in seven host cities, with Johannesburg providing two arenas.

Durban's Absa stadium was approved for World Cup use during a Fifa inspection in 2005, provided the capacity was expanded. Instead, the city built the Moses Mabhida stadium nearby, at a cost of R3.4-billion.

This week, SA Rugby boss Oregan Hoskins told parliament the Sharks rugby franchise was resisting a move to Moses Mabhida, mainly due to its shortage of corporate suites.

In Cape Town, there is similar reluctance on the part of Western Province Rugby to occupy the new Cape Town stadium - though some suspect that the Newlands bosses are simply playing hardball, waiting for the city to become desperate and offer them a rock-bottom lease.

Polokwane's Peter Mokaba and Nelspruit's Mbombela stadiums together cost R2.65-billion. With no popular football or rugby teams anywhere nearby, their only prospect of being filled to capacity is the unlikely granting of an occasional Springbok or Bafana Bafana game.

The viability of Port Elizabeth's Nelson Mandela Bay stadium could hinge on the Southern Kings getting a Super 14 rugby franchise next season.

Even FNB stadium, in the heart of Gauteng, will battle to pay its way. Neither Kaizer Chiefs nor Orlando Pirates want it as their home ground, while the Lions rugby side cannot fill the vast stands. The company contracted to operate the stadium, Stadium Management SA, has optimistically said it will hire out the 94000-seat arena for "conferences, birthday parties and other corporate events".

The Mbombela and Peter Mokaba stadiums may even have to be demolished to avoid crippling maintenance bills. Precedents for this have been set in Japan since the 2002 World Cup, and in Portugal since the 2004 European championships.

Government and World Cup organisers defend the extra stadiums by citing the 66000 construction jobs created. Official figures put wages paid at R7.4-billion, with R2.2-billion going to poor households.

And as many as 150000 South Africans were employed by the greater World Cup project for at least three years. But Pillay points out that most of these jobs have now been lost, with no skills transfer involved. Four of every five of all 2010 workers are back on the street.

What about the much-trumpeted image remake for SA? Christopher Koller, managing director of Interbrand SA, estimates that World Cup broadcasts provided free television "advertising" worth R2-billion.

But global coverage of a peaceful South Africa at play was arguably more effective than any advertisement - vuvuzelas notwithstanding.

Miller Matola, the CEO of the International Marketing Council, said the tournament "significantly rebranded South Africa, changing prevailing stereotypes, negating Afro-pessimism and reshaping how SA is perceived".

"It's very difficult to quantify in rand terms the kind of publicity SA received ... But we can already say it was a justifiable investment. It's almost the same as if we had ploughed the money into health and education, because it influenced how we are seen in the world as an investment destination," said Matola.

He said the tourism sector would be the quickest beneficiary. "World Cup visitors will keep coming back as tourists, many within 18 months, with their families. We anticipate that over the next three to five years two million more tourists will come to SA."

Gillian Saunders, the director of Grant Thornton Strategic Solutions, expects a dramatic appreciation in the "national brand" value this year.

"Immediately after the 2006 World Cup, Germany shot from seventh place to first on the Anholt Nation Brands Index. SA is 38th out of 50 on the 2009 index, and we're hoping to rise to the 20s in the next index, [to be] released later this year."

The Anholt index measures global perceptions of a country's people, tourism, exports and governance. But policy adviser Simon Anholt, creator of the index, warns that countries cannot "rebrand" superficially.

"I coined the phrase 'nation brand' back in 1998," Anholt told New African magazine this month. "But the phrase I didn't coin was 'nation branding', which seems to contain a promise that if a country doesn't like its reputation, it can manipulate it using the techniques of marketing.

"This promise is a lie. Places are judged by what they do and what they make, not by what they say about themselves.

"The image can only be changed by a constant, unbroken stream of dramatic evidence that the country deserves the reputation it desires."